Andy Cohen found his calling after hearing archetypal blind blues musician, Reverend Gary Davis, perform at a folk festival in the 1960s. "I've knocked around quite a bit since that time," he said. "I've done lots of other things.
I'm trained in anthropology. I've done a lot of archaeology. I've written for newspapers.
I've done all sorts of stuff, but the single-most consistent thread has been that I've been a musician." Cohen will perform at the Minstrel Coffeehouse in Morris Township Dec. 29.
He primarily plays a six-string, flat-top guitar, but he always brings along a resonator guitar, banjo and a zither-based string and keyboard instrument called a Dolceola, performing gospel, old-time music, the instrumental music of Reverend Gary Davis and traditional blues songs from the 1920s to the 1940s. "I have some deep pockets in that. I probably know about a thousand different blues songs," he said from his home in Memphis.
Cohen, 60, hails from Sharon, Mass. As a kid, he played cornet and piano along to Doc Evans' recordings from his father's record collection. At age 15, he gravitated to the Jim Kweskin Jug Band and other folk and blues artists that became a part of the folk revival in the 1960s.
"I took out a guitar from my mother's closet and I learned how to play it in a day. About three months later, I heard Reverend Gary Davis at a folk festival. I became interested in his music along with the Lost City Ramblers, Roscoe Holcomb, the Georgia Sea Island Singers and a couple of other people.
That made me a lifer," he said. He primarily likes the pre-war, rural Carolina blues of Baby Tate, Cootie Stark, "Blind" Willie Walker, Blind Boy Fuller, Pink Anderson and Reverend Gary Davis. "My intent is not only to get people to listen to me, but to start digging.
I want them to hear what the old guys did, because it's beautiful music and it's a native creation," he said. Cohen has done extensive research, though he doesn't qualify as an ethnomusicologist. He has listened to old recordings and read books such as David Evans'"Big Road Blues," Jeff Titan's "Early Downhome Blues," Kip Lornell and Charles K.
Wolfe's "Leadbelly," Elijah Walls'"Escaping the Delta" and Robert Gordon's "Can't Be Satisfied" and "It Came From Memphis." He has learned a lot from meeting and talking to the old blues musicians over the years, too. "I visit with them when I can.
I hang out with the old guys at folk festivals. When I was hanging out with these guys 20, 30, 40 years ago, my primary interest was getting them work," he said. For many years, Cohen served as a booking agent for long-forgotten blues musicians such as the late "Blind" Jim Brewer, a Delta bluesman who had played on Maxwell Street in Chicago.
"He and I were both great fans of Big Bill Broonzy, so we started hanging out together and I started bringing him around the country with me," he said. Later, Cohen paid the same favor to Dan Smith, a harmonica player from Alabama, and Daniel Womack, a blind blues musician from Richmond. Cohen has released numerous recordings, including his latest CD, "Ridiculous Instrumentals," in 2005.
For more information on his recordings, visit . Cohen is currently arranging for musicians from the Ozarks Folk Center to attend the Folk Alliance Convention. He also works as director of the Mississippi John Hurt Festival.
He writes reviews for Sing Out!, but mostly he makes a living performing songs from the blues traditions of the 1920s to the 1940s.
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